


Fishbowl

by twofoldAxiom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Background Relationships, Beforus (Homestuck), Beforus Culling (Homestuck), Gen, Unnamed Original Character(s) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23882083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofoldAxiom/pseuds/twofoldAxiom
Summary: Kankri on Beforus.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 42
Collections: HSCCS Promptfest 2020





	Fishbowl

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Jokess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jokess/pseuds/Jokess) in the [HSCCSPromptfest2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HSCCSPromptfest2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> A look into Beforus. Just let your Beforus headcanons shine! Bonus points for something other than the, to me, standard of treating trolls like pampered pets. (A Beforus which is just as fucked up in it's way as Alternia? Good shit.) Extra bonus points if Beforus Feferi is/was very implicit and supportive in the goings on of Beforus. Extra super bonus points if any of the alpha kids are turned troll and they play a part alongside any alpha trolls.
> 
> Rating can be bumped up if needed.

Your name is Kankri Vantas and you're a mutant. This is important to everyone but you.

You're five sweeps old and you haven't been allowed so much as a trip to the gaper without your cullers making sure you aren't going to spontaneously drown in the waste slimes. 

You're six sweeps old and when the rest of the schoolhive is given the mandatory military training, you're held inside and told you're too delicate, you'll hurt yourself, and you're not allowed to fight anyway (they say you're too important for that; you're smart enough to know they mean you'd be killed.)

You're seven sweeps old and the first troll you've ever fallen pale for has said she can't handle the responsibility of someone she might break.

You stare at her, dumbfounded. It's a balmy summer evening, and the sea breeze ruffles your hair. Her earrings catch the moonlight and you stare at them because you can't bear to look her in the eye as she keeps talking.

"I'm not saying I don't feel pale for you, that's- this is why I'm breaking it off. I can't bear the thought of hurting you, and inevitably I _will,_ and you're so..."

"Fragile?" The word tastes like poison. You smile through it. "But isn't that the point? You trust me to roll with the punches and bring you back from that, and I trust you that you will."

"You're special. And I don't trust _myself_ with that." She sighs. "Not with someone like you."

It doesn't matter what you say next because you know what she means even if she doesn't. You're a mutant. You're special. You don't get to make choices.

"See, that's exactly why I don't want to keep going; I know, I know, it hurts- Kankri-"

You would walk into the sea if you didn't know she could swim better than you. Instead, you stay silent, even as it eats you up from the inside. She apologizes once more, lukewarm and awkward and entirely too heartfelt, and says she'll drive you back to your hive. She doesn't offer, she just will; that's how it goes, and she knows just as well as you do the stories of what happens to hapless cullees who wander around without company.

(Sitting beside her in the shuttlebug, and then getting dropped off, it's the stuff of daymares. You watch her drive off while your cullers fuss over you like you're three sweeps old.)

~!~

You're eight sweeps old when you decide to just... go, outside, without telling anyone where you're going. Without waiting for anyone to wake up.

You know it's a terrible idea. In fact, it's the worst possible thing you could do. You've been told, after all, all the stories of what happens to hapless cullees who wander around without company.

But the first step you take out the door in the searing sunlight is like waking from a deep sleep. 

It hurts, in little ways magnified by your fear. Sweat trickles down the back of your neck under your lightcoat as you make your way to the shuttle terminal, and you keep looking over your shoulder, short of breath and waiting for someone to pull you into the sun-sharpened shadows never to return.

And yet, and yet, every step you take you feel that swell of unfamiliar elation. That this was something _you_ set out to do. That this was something you _chose_.

You don't know where you're going and you don't care. You pick a vaguely familiar spot on the map and punch in the coordinates, and lean back to watch the world roll out behind the window. 

Everything takes on new meaning now, shops you'd passed by on the way to class but never had reason to enter draw you in just by virtue of being an option, as do streets and alleys and turns that once felt painted onto the backdrop of your life. Tempting, beckoning, but for the first thing you're going to do, you have somewhere specific in mind.

You will only ever see this in bright, merciless day, mostly devoid of trolls this early, before the sun's even started to set. You burn it into your memory until you're blind with it, from the moment the shuttle stops to the first breath you take as you step out. The bay spreads out to the horizon in a perfect gradation of violet-blue, and the waves gleam so bright it hurts to look at. The sea breeze is warm on your face, warmer than it ever was at night.

You're still sweating. Your gills feel suffocated under your lightcoat. What would it feel like to breathe sea water?

Your cullers are only teal. What would it be like to swim away forever?

Be realistic, Kankri. You're not ambitious enough to find out. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted it to be longer and have a bit where he meets Meenah, but I was running out of time. :(
> 
> I hope you like it anyway!


End file.
